File Photo of BJP President Amit Shah.

During his three-day visit to Lucknow, Shah took a meeting with party workers and reportedly instructed them to focus more on inducting Yadavs in the BJP.

On Sunday. Shah visited a booth level party worker Sonu Yadav, who lives in Badi Jugauli area of Lucknow and had lunch at his house along with CM Yogi Adityantah, Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma.

As per BJP sources, Shah has asked the workers to go to booths, search for Yadavs and Dalits willing to join the party and ask the booth in-charge to enrol them as members.

At the meeting, Shah party workers from the two communities to raise their hands. When very few hands were raised, Shah said that focus would have to be shifted towards increasing the number of members from these two sections of the society.

The backward castes, with Yadavs the most prominent, constitute almost 40% of Uttar Pradesh’s population. A huge chunk of this population voted for BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha elections and also in 2017 UP state assembly elections. Now, the BJP chief wants his party to capitalise on this ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Shah made it clear that Maurya will not be shifted to Centre and will continue to be in the state government. “Keshav Prasad Maurya will continue to work in the state government, he is not going to central government,” he said.

Briefing media on Monday, Shah made it clear that his party had no role in resignation of Nitish Kumar. “Nitish Kumar resigned because of his differences with Lalu Prasad Yadav and intolerance against corruption. BJP has no role to play in whatever had happened in Bihar,” he said.